Bilingual family chat thread

[teafortwo]

I come from a very mono-linguistic background. All my family and extended family speak the same language and being able to speak another language was seen as something rather nice but not really necessary for life. A bit grammar "Ooooh aaaarrr - d'jya know 'e gows to Grammar school yeeeaah! 'e even tawks French, my God!" I suppose.

My family are lovely and deep thinking clever people who don't talk like that - but it is just to show you in a sentence what I mean!

So... it is intensely fascinating and a great challenge to find myself bringing up a bilingual daughter.

I am a bit very addicted to reading any articles or books on bilingualism and am keen to know people in real life who are also bringing up bilingual children. Actually most of my friends children speak two languages - Some Moldavian friends of mine gasped at the idea that I only speak English fluently... "Just English? But how do you live?!?" They asked - as if I had announced I never drink water.

I thought - it might be fun to have a kind of Mumsnet bilingual chat thread where we can talk about the day to day highs, the lows, the funny bits and the sad bits of having a bilingual family and swap advice, ideas, theories, reading material (I am after a good summer read) and anything-else it would be useful to pool.

So.... .... what do you think?

We have our first bilingual misunderstanding today - DS2 wants me to take him to see the wolf (he said this in English). It took me a while before I realise that's because his brother is going to a picture gallery and the term for picture gallery in Mandarin contains a sound like wolf (also in Mandarin). What a relief. Don't know where you'd find a wolf around here.

Mouette

My daughter probably says about half a dozen French words and twice as many English words but seems to have a fairly even understanding of both languages - it would be amazing if it was any different as, once she leaves our house (or, on Saturday mornings, French playgroup) it's solid English all the way, all around her. In fact, in my sane moments, I'm amazed she says as many French words as she does! (This morning she started saying "beaucoup" and had another go at "chameau" after a month off - it's now "amo" instead of just "mo". Double whammy - v proud!)

Pitchounette - I know what you mean, of course. English is very hard on spelling and techincalities too - I think in our system we just admit defeat!

Mouette

My situation is a bit different in that my partner has pretty good passive French - but, especially at first, I made a real effort to speak French that she could understand when she was in the room so that she didn't feel excluded (eg I would go easy on the subjunctives, use verbs that she would either know or could guess from the context, made sure I spoke about things that were happening there and then so she - and our daughter - could relate sound to sense, etc.) Whether she would have minded if I hadn't done that I can't say, but she has been very tolerant of the whole thing so far. The adult ego is a delicate and wonderful thing ... I think it's also now clear that our daughter's English has in no way suffered and I laid it on thick about the advantages (not just social, but intellectual) of bilingual, and so my partner's attitude is now v positive towards Junior's bilingualism. It's definitely something that adds rather than detracts, IYSWIM.

Thanks Pitchounette and MIFLAW - the issue is probably that dh doesn't speak or understand French at all and has no incentive to do so at the moment because everybody in my (French) family speaks perfect English! My mum is actually British by birth, although has been living in France for over 30 years, my sister and brother in law are professors of English! But I had a chat to dh about it and he's going to try and learn a bit of French so as not to feel left out... He understands the benefits of bilingualism. Plus I confess that my sister in law (not French, dh's brother's wife) is sooo competitive and keeps going on about all the marvellous things her daughter does (she's 1 year old)... I am sneakily pleased my son could grow up bilingual and have that advantage! Childish, I know...

Childish? hell no! There is nothing more satisfying than beating intensely competitive people without appearing to try - which is exactly what will happen if you go for "proper" bilingualism (ie no explicit lessons, just speaking the language consistently around and to the child.)

Doesn't need to be an issue that your husband doesn't speak French - as long as he gets over feeling threatened when you do. Just keep reminding him that your child's dominant language is likely to be English, but with really good French on top as a "free gift".

I know! I know! I will make a point of chatting to him in French when we're at one of the family dinners she likes to organise so that she can talk for 2 hours about her daughter's swimming classes, sign language classes, pretty dress, perfect behaviour, and generally her all-round perfectness (I like the kid, by the way - just wonder if she will not grow up to be very vain!) Oooh that will so annoy her. Just like the christening - we're Christians so will get our son baptised - she's not so her dd will not get a big day... Hnyyaaar hnyaaar hnyaarrrh.

"perfect behaviour" at 1 year old? Beyond futile and meaningless.

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Pitchounette: that's a good idea. I've started to say things to DS in French, then repeat them in English for DH (that way he can see I'm generally talking nonsense and he isn't missing much!) DH is not into languages either! But in his case he genuinely doesn't need French - except when we go to the village shop and the lady there keeps chatting to him in French!

MIFLAW: I knooooow, I knoooow. She's one - of course she's behaving! I await the toddler years with interest... Ooooh please let her mother take her again to a wedding or some such occasion and parade her around as usual, and oh please please let the tired, overexcited child throw a MEGA tantrum. Ooohhh am I being evil? But with her it's always: "Oh I breast fed her exclusively for 6 months" (I bottle feed), "I don't let her have a dummy during the day" (I'm a big dummy fan me), "It's a good thing we feed her sooo healthily" ('cause my son is big for his age), etc, etc. Plus I don't take DS swimming, or teach him sign language (French plus English is enough for him to deal with!) You do end up turning a little bit evil...

Mouette, you're making me laugh with your niece stories. I have a SIL who is ultra competitive, but in things that don't interest me, like who has the best dressed kids, whose kids appear more often in teh local newspapers looking sparkling like they've been bathed 3 times a day (they have!)

When it comes to bilingualism she just puts her head on one side and asks if they're ABLE to keep up in class through FRench etc. Like she pities me and them. She'll learn though!!

Pillowcase

Have you tried a riposte along the lines of, "yes, it must be so much easier for children who only speak the one language but she seems to be muddling through"?

It used to annoy me now I just think it's funny. Last Friday we were at a friend's wedding and my niece was flower girl (she's one, remember? and only learnt to walk a couple of months ago). That was SIL's idea of course - the bride doesn't want children and there were no other kids at the wedding. But as my niece is too little to understand what being a flower girl entails, my SIL had to hold her by the hand and show her how to spread the flowers. To do that she had to lean down to her level. So the bridal procession went like this:

• my niece, looking cute but somewhat puzzled
• my SIL's not unconsiderable backside, clad in pink
• the bride and her dad, looking classy but with a slightly lopsided smile
• the (classy, young, pretty) bridesmaids.

I had never seen a bridal procession quite like that...

Best to stay out of the ring with people like that.

In my experience, you can never win against genuine, single minded idiocy.

Well said... I'm standing by, and waiting for the terrible twos... Whilst chatting to my son in French...

ZZZZ - apologies for the delay in replying... and now I'm not even going to answer your question for fear of being accused of being Russianist!

I don't think, TBH, that one can ever truly "run with the herd" again if trying to be a bilingual family with children. There are too many differences, too many shifting priorities and too many things you can't take for granted. That's what caused me, very briefly (perhaps a week) to bottle it when my daughter was born and go back on my decision.

But then i thought, who wants to run with the herd? As herds go, it doesn't look very exciting ...

ah gotcha Annie but you answered it then anyway!

I am feeling a bit relieved that I don't live in a francophone country tbh reading this thread. I dunno about my accent in French, presumably absymal if my French teacher at school was anything to go by.

I found they all understood me just fine when I was buying something from them (they nod encouragingly all the time like dp with a dc learning to walk); but otherwise for some reason not unless they were men on the prowl and they seem to understand well enough too. Strange altogether.

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Terrified.

Still here.

Still enjoying, too, the word "Russianist" meaning someone woh is anti-Russian. When I was studying Russian at uni we were known as the Russianists .... Though I suppose if one spent any length of time in Moscow one could be a Russianist in both senses ...

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I tried to teach daughter as a baby using Doman's method (ie 8-12mths) but stopped because I got a lot of flak on this site and then someone said it had worked too well for her and turned her into a friendless freak (I perhaps paraphrase slightly ...)

Will definitely try again when she is a little older though (2? 3?) as feel that reading in French will add to her vocab and increase the number of "models" she has.

What IS the French method? I'd love to know.

MIFLAW - are you referring to me? We use the Doman approach to teach reading and writing Chinese. Best thing ever.

No no no.

I said that I was using it and invited constructive advice.

Amongst all the soapbox experts and the "you're going to hell" merchants one woman said that her own parents had used it on her and it had worked. In fact, it had worked so well that she had stuck out at school and her social relations with peers had severely suffered.

I decided this was probably not going to happen to us but, just in case it did, I put the programme on hold (plus it was getting hard to hold newly-crawling infant's attention, big red letters or not.)